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Friday, July 14, 2017

Rachel Flowers - Listen

Rachel Flowers is for me one of the most brilliant composers
and multi-instrumentalist I’ve discovered. I first became aware of Rachel after
discovering one of her interpretations on YouTube of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s
Tarkus, The Endless Enigma, and Trilogy. And I was blown away by her.
This was mind-blowing of her to take on a huge challenge of playing their
material and not to mention playing Keith Emerson’s modular moog which I can
imagine it was an honor of her to play it by getting permission.

For her, it is a blessing. She’s performed with Dweezil
Zappa with Zappa Plays Zappa in April of 2015 in honor of the 40th anniversary
of Frank Zappa’s album, One Size Fits
All. There are clips of her performing on keyboards with Inca Roads, Evelyn, A Modified Dog, and
on guitar with Montana. She played
when she was 10 years old, for the late great Ray Charles, and meeting people
including Stevie Wonder, Greg Lake, and of course, Keith Emerson.

Rachel lost her eyesight when she was very young, but she
never gave up. She has an amazing ear, and a perfect pitch. That and her debut
album entitled, Listen, Rachel has
created her own sound, beauty, and textures. The genres of classical, jazz, and
progressive rock is all here on Listen. It
is at times an emotional journey that Flowers herself will take you on.

Greg’s Favorite which
is a tribute to the late great Greg Lake, has this 3/4 time signature of a
ballad and waltz. It has some symphonic touches. Her vocalizations at times
brings to mind of the Canterbury scene with The Northettes who appeared on Egg’s
The Civil Surface and Hatfield and
the North’s sole self-titled debut album. She plays beautifully on the piano and
rising sounds from both the strings and drums.

The spirit of Keith Emerson is flowing in her and is letting
Rachel know that he will always be with her wherever the yellow brick road will
take her into. You can imagine Flowers is doing her own style of doing a score
to the follow up of The Peanuts Movie showing
some essence of Vince Guaraldi.

Goes To Eleven is
almost a nod to the 1984 cult classic, This
Is Spinal Tap’sMarshal Amps going up to 11 spoken by Nigel Tufnel. This is
a cross between Jazz, Fusion, and Prog-Rock. With melodic elements between
guitars, horn sections, and string section, Rachel playing guitar is
jaw-dropping. She is a virtuosic master carrying the styles between Frank
Zappa, Allan Holdsworth, and Steve Vai rolled into one.

The two-part suite Aloha
is an orchestral jazz atmosphere. The first part has this classical touch
and you can imagine the sun coming over the horizon for a brand new day. With
glowing moments from the symphony between the fanfare and its epic touch. You
can imagine Rachel bringing Disney’s Fantasia
back from the dead and making sure they were continuing a follow up to Fantasia 2000.

It then moves onto the second part in the Jazz world with a
Bass playing a simple line. It is this cross between Miles Davis and John
Coltrane if he hadn’t passed away as if the two of them were working together
and creating something that was beyond their Bebop Jazz roots and delivering
the spirituality journey to continue. Rachel is taking the listener to the
spiritual adventure that is special and finding their inner selves.

She is very much like a painter drawing a simple line and
never knowing she will stop. And the bass improvisations that reminisce between
Stanley Clarke and Jaco Pastorius followed by a flute improvisation she does.
And then there’s, Run For Miles. Rachel
shows her nod to the late great Miles Davis. You can hear the howling of the
trumpet calling for a sign.

You can hear some Holdsworth-sque improvisation on the
keyboards. Not only it is a nod to Miles, but she pays a nod to Kind of Blue as if Rachel was using the
SynthAxe to carry the torch for Allan Holdsworth and keeping his legacy alive.
I had an amazing time listening to Rachel Flowers’ Listen. This is a very good release that unleashed last year.

She will be performing near the end of July in Birmingham,
England entitled, Keith Emerson – A Musical
Celebration of his Life and in October 13th to the 15th
of this year for the three-day ProgStock festival in New Jersey with Echolyn,
Glass Hammer, Karmakanic, EchoTest (featuring Julie Slick), The Tea Club, and Rani Chatoorgoon to name
a few. She is going to be very busy this year. So please check out her debut album, Listen.

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About Me

I'm a blogger/freelance writer from Houston, TX who writes album reviews because I enjoy it. Even though, I'm not the best writer, there is no stop sign for me. I have a love of Progressive Rock music, Jazz Fusion, and Early Heavy Metal music from the '60s to the early '80s. I went to HCC (Houston Community College) for nine years and have completed my degree in Music in Performance: Jazz Studies. I've been writing Progressive Rock and Symphonic Metal reviews starting back in 2008 on my blogsite and it never gets old.